No one is better at mainstreaming extremist right-wing conspiracy theories than the folks at the Trump administration’s state broadcaster in all but name, Fox News. An important component of their propaganda strategy is the group of folks at Fox & Friends who greet the president in his PJ’s every morning and whose every uttered morsel of right-wing drivel Trump frantically spends his lengthy morning “executive time” retweeting.
The Fox & Friends crew — joined by perennial Republican mouthpiece Mike Huckabee — turned their attention to spreading innuendo about the unnaturally effective and probing rising Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) this morning.
Having gotten so used to the Republican congressional dullards and sycophants who held the majority in the House of Representatives until this latest term, the Fox & Friends hosts exposed their deep-rooted sexism and racism by finding it simply unthinkable that the Bronx-born Hispanic congresswoman wasn’t merely a puppet being controlled by larger nefarious forces who told her what to say and what to do.
As the video clip in the tweet below demonstrates, they went as far as accusing AOC, as her fans like to call her. of being a “Manchurian Candidate,” a reference to a Cold War-era novel from the late 1950s — later turned into a movie featuring Frank Sinatra — about an American soldier captured during the Korean War who is brainwashed by the Soviets and turned into an unwitting, and murderous, sleeper agent ready to assassinate a presidential candidate.
Fox & Friends on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "Somebody's writing her questions … there is some forces behind her."
"There has been some allegations she that was almost like the Manchurian Candidate"
Transcript: https://t.co/7S7qYegiP0 pic.twitter.com/Ywfky5hWQv
— Media Matters (@mmfa) March 21, 2019
Such folderol and balderdash would normally inspire astonishment and ridicule in any intelligent person who happened upon it — making the assumption that no intelligent person would ever watch Fox & Friends voluntarily.
Representative Ocasio-Cortez, however, has a fighter’s spirit and took the time to explain to her sizable Twitter following the truth behind her supposedly magical ability to draft properly relevant and probing questions to ask witnesses at the committee hearings she attends.
You know what’s amusing about this whole thing?
Our leg staff (who help w Qs) *also* worked in restaurants, grew up in Appalachian trailer parks, and come from immigrant families.
Wait until they find out I actually PAY them to do their jobs, coach them myself,& offer feedback. https://t.co/sd888Uxx0M
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 21, 2019
Perhaps Huckabee and the Fox & Friends hosts have grown so used to the poor caliber of Republican representatives that have traipsed across their stage with only pre-scripted talking points to regurgitate that their standards have been indelibly lowered to the point that when they encounter a congressperson who fulfills the requirements of her job properly they must attribute to outside forces.
They do seem to believe in witches, given the number of times that they refer to the “witch hunt” at the White House on Fox News. Then again it could just be the racism and sexism that has them speaking in tongues and seeing hidden masterminds. Why go for the simple explanation of the truth when there are conspiracy theories to invent?
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
Original reporting by Media Matters For America.
